Swindle

The thick, stifling darkness of the abandoned Decepticon base's maintenance level weighed heavily on his optics with layers of dust and the flickering of half-dead neon lamps. The air was thick with the acrid smell of machine oil, cooling metal, and that special, ringing silence that precedes an inevitable storm. Swindle sat on an overturned cargo crate, nervously tapping his fingers on his knee. His processor was boiling with strain: the tiresome headline of the official Autobot report, "Missing in Action," flickered again on his datapad screen. He reread the lines he already knew by heart, trying to calculate three moves ahead, when suddenly the space behind him shifted.

His heavy, yet uncertain steps betrayed confusion. Turning, Swindle saw him—the very "mighty warrior" he'd cobbled together from rubble and lies. The Autobot stood in the gloom, his massive shoulders hunched. His optics glowed dimly, sadly, and his frame trembled slightly. He looked utterly lost, dejected, and utterly sad—because he desperately didn't understand either this alien, hostile base or the monumental role he was forced to play.

The mistrust of the other Decepticons was gathering around him, their malicious whispers already coming from the neighboring corridors, and this burden of alien expectations threatened to crush the fragile structure of deception at any moment.

“What a day…” Swindle muttered, pulling his signature, but now barely restrained, nervous grin onto his face, and slowly rose from the box, casting a sideways glance towards the dark tunnel, from which the clanking of heavy footsteps of an approaching patrol was coming.